It All Ends In Red
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: In the end, Jane won.  In his own dark, twisted way.  And she took some comfort in that.  Character death.


**So aside from the "I don't own anything" disclaimer, I need to add in that I wrote this in fifteen minutes, the amount of time I had at my computer between finding out my early class was cancelled and leaving for my second class. And this is all Amber's fault because she now has me convinced that Jane will not live through the final confrontation with Red John.**

**So yeah, don't own anything, fifteen minute one shot, Amber's fault.**

"Give me the gun," Lisbon said, holding her own firearm at arm's length in warning.

Taliaferro shook his head, keeping his own gun out. "Like I'm stupid."

"Shoot him, Lisbon," Jane said.

"Jane, get out of here," Lisbon said in warning, not daring to glance away from the killer to where the consultant stood a few paces behind and to her right. "I've got this."

Taliaferro's eyes glinted at this; Lisbon knew he knew that she wasn't feeling so confidant. And if Red John knew, then Jane knew too. "Jane," she said again. "Go. Please."

"Kill him, Lisbon." The voice sounded desperate, pained even. "He killed Angela and Charlotte, kill him, please!"

She heard him step closer, and she felt panicked. "Jane," she begged, terrified, "get out of here!"

"Not until he's dead." Jane's voice was calm to anyone who didn't know it, but Lisbon was not one such person. He wanted this to be over now. He didn't want a trial. And she knew that he wouldn't be any more willing to allow that this time.

"Give me the gun," Lisbon said, still hedging on actually firing. She wanted his sick bastard dead, yes, but she knew her orders were to bring him in, if possible. But she was in a tricky situation, Taliaferro would kill to get away, and if she tried to shoot him in the leg or the arm to disable him, he'd react and fire and kill her, and then probably Jane too. Van Pelt was probably only a few minutes out. If she got here, and then the two of them could hold out until Rigsby and Cho got here…

"Lisbon," Jane said, in a tone of voice that she'd never heard before, a tone that made her hurt, "kill him!"

"Yes," Taliaferro said. "Kill me. You know I'll find a way to walk. A jury won't convict me. They won't believe anything Patrick says. Not after last time." He smiled. "Though you don't really think I'll get away with it, do you? You have faith in the justice system, and it has put a lot of killers away for life…and there _is_ a lot of evidence linking me to this…"

"He's messing with you, Lisbon," Jane said. "He's trying to get you to doubt every action that even crosses your mind, and he has friends coming, I'm sure of it. He'll get away if you don't _shoot him now._"

"Last chance," Lisbon said. "Give me the gun. We'll talk." Lies, all of it, but she'd been trained to talk down criminals not posing an immediate threat to civilians. And unless he made a move to fire – his finger wasn't even on the trigger – he could do no harm.

But Jane being in the room was still scaring her. "Jane," she said, "please leave."

She dared glancing a little to the right, and Jane's eyes, burning, met hers. "This ends here." Out of his coat pocket came a gun, and he swung his firing arm, weapon in hand, toward Red John.

The killer's reaction was instant; there was no way he would let Jane be the one to kill him. The weapon fired, and as Lisbon reacted and sent a bullet into the chest of Red John, she saw Jane fall.

Not even bothering to find out if the serial killer was dead or dying – it was one or the other – Lisbon fell to the ground next to Jane. "Jane," she said, searching for where the bullet went in. Her heart sank when she saw the hole, dead in the center of the consultant's forehead. A death shot.

"_No_," she said, putting one of her hands on his neck, the other on his chest, desperate for a heartbeat when she knew that there would be none. She pushed on his chest in a futile attempt to revive him; she wasn't an idiot, she knew he was gone and nothing she could do would bring him back. But she still felt herself go through the motions, those motions that were irrelevant to a head injury, anyway.

But after mere seconds, she snapped out of her delusional thoughts. Her eyes clouded with tears as she grabbed Jane's hands and squeezed them, hoping against hope that maybe he could feel that. "I need an ambulance now!" she shouted into her communication device pinned to her vest, although she knew it would do no good. It wouldn't even get here in time to save Taliaferro.

Behind her, she could hear Red John choking as he slowly drowned in his own blood, and she made herself shake her tears free and watch the final seconds of the murderer's – of Jane's torterer's – life. _When I find him,_ Jane had told her, years earlier,_ I am going to cut him open and watch him die._ Jane could never do that; it was the least she could do to watch him take his last pained, struggled breath, before going completely still in a pool of blood.

Lisbon tilted her head and wiped her eyes on her shoulder, looking back at Jane, who lay flat on his back. "Dammit," she said, her voice breaking, "why didn't you leave?" Why did he attempt to fire? He would have known that Taliaferro, a skilled killer with a weapon already drawn, would get him first. Why would he let Red John win? She let go of ones of his hands and slapped him, angry that he hadn't listened to her. She thought they were a team. And then she felt bad putting her hand on the side of his face and repositioning him into a more comfortable looking position.

She looked at his eyes, eerily open, and cocked her head slightly as she noticed that they seemed happier, more at peace, more un – tormented than they had the entire time she'd known him, even at his playful best. And she realized what had happened.

Jane had, in the end, chosen death. Death for himself and for Red John. Lisbon had the killer at gunpoint, and should Red John shift his attention from her to Jane, for even an instant, Lisbon would fire. And there would be a chance that Jane would die as a result. But Red John would shoot to kill; he'd want to make sure Jane was dead so he could not ever get revenge for that, and because of that need to have him surely dead, Lisbon knew that Jane did not suffer. And it would guarantee that Lisbon, a sure shot, would react and kill Red John as a result. There would be no 'maybe'. No chance of a Not Guilty verdict. No chance of an escape from prison. Only death.

And that was exactly what Jane had always wanted. And he knew, in his last moment, that he had it. Whether he heard Lisbon fire or not, she didn't know, but he knew that she would. He didn't need to see it, and Jane and Taliaferro were enough alike that Lisbon had a feeling that, in his final moments, the killer knew that he had been played. That Jane had known this could happen and was ready to go out that way. That the way Taliaferro had lost his life was, in the end, all according to Jane's plan. Jane had won.

Lisbon knew that Jane didn't believe in Heaven. But she did, and she didn't believe you had to believe in it to go there. Jane was, she was sure, and she was comforted in knowing that not only did Jane die at relative peace and how he wanted, he was with Angela and Charlotte again, and he could be happier than he was capable of being while living without them on Earth. And she knew that one day she'd see that smile again, that completed, fully contented smile.

It was a small comfort, but it made the knife twisting in Lisbon's chest a little less painful, and the tears over flowing her eyes a little less grief stricken. She signed on with Jane all those years ago knowing that this, Red John's death, was all he really was living for. And knowing that in the end he trusted her above all things, and this trust was a critical piece in this final show down going down according to Jane's plan. Which it had.

Red John had played Jane before. But in this, their final contest, Jane had come out on top. Lisbon firing that gun, at that moment, as he knew she would, was his Swan Song.

"Oh, my God!"

Lisbon raised her head to see Van Pelt, surveying the scene, her eyes wide. It took her no more than two seconds to realize Jane was dead, and her eyes welled up. Lisbon, lowered her head. "He's gone."

Van Pelt dropped to her knees next to Lisbon. "Was it on his terms?" she asked quietly, and Lisbon could only nod. Van Pelt let out a sigh, put one hand on Jane's arm, and the other around Lisbon's shoulders. And the two women slumped against each other and continued to hold back their tears. Jane wouldn't want them to cry.

**This is the first time I've written main character death, so I couldn't make it too gruesome. And if Jane does die, I do hope it's on his terms. So this is my "if it's established Jane dies, this is how I'd want it to happen" fic, since there'd have to be a positive twist to it somewhere.**


End file.
